


Future Imperfect

by blakefancier



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:28:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blakefancier/pseuds/blakefancier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are a man with obligations. You are a coward.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Future Imperfect

**Author's Note:**

> Second person is something I don't do very often and only done after I've read a really awesome 2nd person fic. Anyway, I hope you all like it. I think I am trying to get as much stuff posted before Monday as I can. I will be traveling all of next week and don't know how much writing I'll get done.

Steve cups your face and says, 'Howard, I love you' in that fearless way of his. But, you don’t respond in kind. You are a man with obligations. You are a coward.

You're glad when he turns his attention to Peggy. The knot in your chest eases and you let out a sigh of relief. You think you're safe. You think you've dodged a bullet. 

When he dies, you shatter into a million bright, jagged pieces.

You realize you are too late. Maybe you always were.

***** 

You're drunk and it's dark and you trip over her in the garden. 

Maria is sitting in the grass, her dress pulled up to her knees, her short hair disheveled. She laughs at you. No one has laughed at you in years and you find yourself charmed by it. By her. 

You tell her that she has beautiful knees. She tells you that if you touch her, she'll kick you in the face. 

Six months later you ask her to marry you. 

She tells you that she'll think about it. She thinks about it for three months and each time you see her your heart pounds in your chest and your nerves feel like they've been scraped raw and you're afraid. You're afraid in a way you haven't been since the war. Since Steve. 

When she says yes, it's as if you've exhaled. It's as if all your jagged edges have been smoothed.

***** 

He is a colossal mistake clothed in the tiny body of an infant. But he's the kind of mistake that empires are built upon, so you gather him in your arms and kiss his smooth brow.

You tell him, 'I love you, Tony.'

He cries then, screams until his face is red and his little body shakes with anger. It won't be the last time he rails at you. It won't be the last time you pass him to his mother and turn away. 

***** 

Maria doesn't understand it. 'He needs you,' she says. 'He wants to spend time with you.'

You're not sure why she'd think that. You remember your own father, they way he hovered, the way he orbited around you as if you were the sun. It was annoying. You always did better alone, caught up in your own little world, consumed by work. Tony doesn’t need you, shouldn’t need you.

Brilliance is isolating and genius requires a detachment that few can stomach. 

Your father couldn't manage it.

You, with your millions of shards, edges smoothed by time and love, pieces that no longer fit together like a puzzle, you excel at it. 

***** 

You realize too late that Tony is not you.

You realize too soon that Maria is unhappy.

***** 

You have not thought about Steve in years. 

*****

You excel at lying, too. Especially to yourself. 

***** 

You're drunk, too drunk to drive. So you hand the keys to Maria and settle into the front passenger seat. 

She's angry with you: angry that you're drunk and angry that you argued with Tony about graduate school. Maybe she's even angry that she no longer loves you. 

You wish you could be angry, but the best you can muster is tired and nauseated. 

You close your eyes and you swallow hard against the lump in your throat and in that second the world spins. The angry squeal of metal bending and the cacophony of glass breaking fills the air.

You want to open your eyes, you try to open your eyes, but it hurts too much. You feel shattered, you feel broken. You feel as if the edges have come back.

Maybe they have. You've missed them. 

You've missed a lot of things.


End file.
